beoman

I like to lie down and focus on the energy in my body, try to feel my body everywhere, etc. im getting better at actually feeling my solar plexus and lower dantien points and stuff. However, when I get to my feet.. I feel like there's something wrong with them. If I don't think about them, they seem fine. I rollerblade twice a day, walk around, and don't have problems. However if I relax my whole body and feel them, it feels like they should hurt in some way.. like they feel weak. It also feels like there is a 'hole' in the energy at the toes. Like.. I can't extend my 'awareness'/'energy-feeling' to envelop my toes, and when I try, my abs and legs tense up in a strange way. Any ideas what I'm talking about / how to 'fix' it?

Here's a quote from "The Sutra On Cause And Effect In The Three Periods Of Time," english translation at http://www.purifymind.com/CauseEffectSutra.htm : This seems to contradict other things I've read about karma... I heard that causes and conditions are wayyy too complicated to be able to pick one thing out, like "giving food to the poor," and relate it to another thing happening in another life, like "having plentiful goods." To me it also seems kind of... logical, and too straightforward. Along these lines are, "If you kill someone, you'll be killed in another life. If you take mind-altering substances, you'll be insane in the next life. 'People who reek with a terrible stench sold inferior scents and phony goods.'" Like you just take an effect you consciously create and have that same thing happen to you without your will in the next life. It seems like if Buddhist laws of karma were correct, we wouldn't be able to predict them that well, and it would make a lot less "sense". For example, in one sutra, Buddha and another monk saw an apparition: a skeleton floating in the air being eaten by vultures. Buddha said the man was a butcher, and now he's going to be in that state for the next 500 years cause of his deeds. Strangely, it being more fantastical and less logical makes me more inclined to believe it. Anyway, in the sutra I quoted, is Buddha maybe just telling people bad things will happen later if you do them now to encourage them to do good deeds, which you should do anyway to have good karma? Or maybe he is not being literal?

Well them's a lot of Buddhists there, doing meditation and good deeds and such, lots of monks too... isn't leading the life of a monk conducive to purifying one's karma? Also according to the logic, the western world should be SCREWED! Man did we kill millions of people - the crusades, the inquisition, the world wars, the cold war, oh man.

For about the past 5-6 days now, I've been consistently feeling a point of pressure in my head. It is definitely not a headache, as I've had those before and know what they feel like, but it feels like it could cause a headache at times, even though it doesn't. I'd say it's pretty much in the center of my head.. like if you drew a line from my nose to the back of my head, and a perpendicular line between my cheekbones, it'd be where they meet. It kind of moves around, though. I feel sometimes like if it move back a little, I don't feel the pressure as much anymore, though I still know something is there. It is a pretty tangible feeling, not something at the edge of my perception that I'm not sure I'm feeling. It also gets more intense if I focus on it / meditate focusing on it. If I do other things, it either goes away, or I just don't notice it anymore, but when my focus on whatever other task is gone the feeling is still there. The point sometimes moves away from the center of my head, at which point I feel like that part of my face kind of stiffens. I can kind of control its movement but not really. Anyway... any idea what it is / anyone felt this before? I haven't heard about anything like this before. I wouldn't normally ask but it's been pretty persistent these past days. It doesn't seem to line up with any points that I read about for example doing microcosmic orbit meditation, which is just third eye and then throat.

That actually was a concern of mine, too. I'll mention these problems, which will probably seem like I'm imagining things, and they might do brain scans and stuff to try to find something wrong with me, or like you said, dangerous tests. And then I could get misdiagnosed.. etc. It's kind of not as strong this morning. I think doing the tai chi form last night helped. It was intense when I meditated, though. I also feel like I can "take cues" from the feeling on where my head should be, so I ended up swaying my head back and forth while I was meditating. I was moving myself, but I was kind of being guided on where to move based on what I felt.

That's just an insight meditation right? Mindfulness of breathing. I've been doing noting lately, which is also insight.. i'll try doing it just w/ breathing, see if that helps. i've also been taking tai chi classes, but that's not forced practice, that is natural

hmm not sure. I tried concentrating on my feet, and it abated at first, but then it came back. then as i tried to concentrate more, it got more intense, maybe cause I was being distracted and concentrating on it instead? It does sometimes expand+contract, other times it just kind of nestles in some area and moves in place a little

Mm yea I was considering that.. I guess I have clear enough symptoms that I can describe to him, if I could describe them here. maybe it's bacteria eating my brain

Sorry if this question has been asked before on the forum... I'm almost certain it has, but I searched for "third eye" and for "third" and it gave no results, so maybe the search is wack atm? On two occasions recently, when meditating, I've been struck by an intense tingling between my eyebrows. I wasn't focusing on that area before I felt it - I was just doing noting. Usually I can feel some tingling there if I point my finger at it, or focus on the area a bit, but this was a much more intense feeling. After a little time of feeling the sensation it also felt like my head was really stiff. My questions are: * Did this have something to do w/ the third eye? Something w/ the third eye "awakening"? * What does it mean to have your third eye awaken? What happens as a result? A link to more detailed posts about it would be great too since I'm sure there's something about it.. just not sure what info is good and what isn't.

hah that would be the best answer =P. There aren't many mosquitos around, though.. and I've never had such a feeling from a mosquito bite before. My forehead wasn't tingling in an itchy way, it was just.. felt like there was something there.

Yeah I do understand this on some level. I oscillate between "ah well I'll just keep meditating! something is happening, it's neat, will see what happens next" to "omg I must know what that was!! tell me it was a cool experience!", although I never feel the latter too intensely. I think a balance is helpful though... it's too much to have any tiny thing happen and look for confirmation for what it was, but it seems too little to have things happen and have no idea what they mean. Then again, unless an experience would change the "just keep meditating in the same way" thought, I sppose it's not necessary to know "what" it was. Thanks! I think I was looking for that. I'll see what's up.

I read somewhere (forgot the source unfortunately) that they did a few experiments to see what could help reflexes. The things they tried were: napping, light exercise, meditation, a few other things. They noticed that nothing really improved reflexes except napping (after a 40 minute period to get un-drowsy, they said), and meditating (which worked immediately afterwards). They said participants meditated for 40 minutes, and even the unexperienced ones had temporarily improved reflexes. I wanted to try this out for myself. I used the reflex test at http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/index.php . So far it looks like it may be true! Here's my results so far: On 8/25, before meditating, avg 237.8 over 10 trials, fastest ~218 . After 30 minutes of noting meditation, avg 227 over 10 trials, fastest ~207 . On 8/29 at 3am, before meditating, avg 240.5, fastest 223 over 5 trials. After 41 min of focusing on breath meditation, avg 250.3, fastest 228 (yes, slower). On 8/29, at 3pm (after sleeping), upon waking I had avg 255.4, min like ~230, after an hour or two of waking up, doing some tai chi exercises, avg 226.8, lowest ~218, and after 49 minutes of noting meditation, I had 198 min, avg 215.3 over 20 trials. First + Third result gave me ~10ms or so increase it seems, with fastest time getting much faster. The site says the median is 215ms, so it's interesting that I'm slower than avg before meditating but faster than average after meditating. The 3am trial I actually did worse on, but I blame that on the fact that I was really sleepy =P. Anyway, anyone want to repeat this experiment and see if they get similar results?

Oh statue and the clay? This seems really silly. "Statue" is just a name for a combination of phenomena. So is "clay". The phenomenon of a given statue of clay being in a place can be viewed as either there being a statue there, or a bunch of clay there, or a statue made of clay. The statue exists in a relative sense, but doesn't exist in an absolute sense. I think saying "we are the statue and the statue is us" is confusing.

Statue?

Nice, you're pretty fast. What do you do during zhan zhuang? It'd be nice to get a massive set of data points, but that'd be a tough undertaking.

I've been learning how to do taoist / natural breathing, based on "Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body." i think I'm getting better. My belly, sides, and lower back expand in unison, and i'm working on getting my upper back to expand by taking deeper breaths. normally i practice this sitting or lying down. however i've tried it standing up a few times. when I've tried it standing, my heart rate quickly goes way up and I can feel my heart beating harder / more intensely as well. this takes less than a minute to happen. is there any particular reason for this? is it good/bad? i assume it's related to the breathing, because i stand and walk around during the day and that doesn't happen. i don't thiink it's because I'm short of breath - I don't feel that way anyway. i am breathing in and out rather quickly, though. maybe I'm doing it wrong, as I can still take deeper breaths if I breathe using the front of my chest.

Nice story! Soon after I started to meditate, I started wondering whether meditation could solve psychological problems. I realized that meditating is about calming your mind, at least, by learning how it works and not to get swept up by it, so I figured it could help with mental problems... but I wasn't sure, and hadn't heard of anyone doing it. It seems like it worked for you, although it was a long journey. Congrats to you, not many people can pull that off. BTW I loved the random software references. Are you a computer scientist / programmer-type / IT person?

How does the concept of anatta or no-self interact with the concept of free will? As I understand it, in Buddhism at least, there is free will. Karma will influence your life, and you can be a complete slave to it, but you can also influence it by your actions (and especially by becoming enlightened). When meditating I can maybe start to see some aspects of no-self. Correct me if I'm mistaken, which I may well be, but it's like how a sensation that "I" feel isn't necessarily connected to me, but could just be a sensation somewhere that is perceived. Like how sensations just arise from a sequence of causes and effects, one of the effects being it is felt somehow. But I can't perceive this with a voluntary action, like when I shift my weight a little. Sure there are causes and effects which cause me to shift my weight, and then the weight shifts, and there are those sensations.. but it seems to have interacted at some point with "me" wanting to shift my weight, and commanding "my" muscles in some way to move. I could see how it could all be no-self if it's just purely cause and effect, and there wasn't any entity or anything that had any say in choosing to shift the weight - that is, the feeling that I wanted to do it, and did it, were just there as perceptions with no "entity" having a say in them. But then how can any "entity" or "conglomeration of sentience" as xabir put it have free will? And if we don't have free will then... you could just sit back and watch life unfold eh? What would be the point of trying to become enlightened? Unless that's just how it plays out and we don't really have a say in anything. I guess that would make it easier to not worry about anything =P. Anyway, I have mostly a "rational" understanding of anatta now, not a direct perceptual one, which you can probably tell from my questions. But can someone try to explain it?

At xabir's recommendation I've read through Daniel Ingram's self-described "unusually hardcore dharma book" (available here: http://web.mac.com/danielmingram/iWeb/Daniel%20Ingram's%20Dharma%20Blog/The%20Blook/The%20Blook.html ). To me, it seems pretty great. It seems an extremely sober presentation of what this type of spiritual life can offer, what enlightenment means, and how to help get there. Even when he goes on his abusive rants, I tend to see his arguments as making sense (as well as being pretty funny). It seems like a good guide with lots of practical advice that I can follow to help me on my way. However, I also know how my personality works. Anytime I read something with a new point of view about something I don't know that much about, if the arguments seem to make sense to me (which false arguments easily can, due to my inexperience with the material), I tend to agree with it. I maybe agree with it to too large of an extent, that is, until I read another well-presented something perhaps from a different point of view. To get to my point: what are the aspects of his book that you think aren't so true, or so helpful, or might even lead one down the wrong path? I'd like to see some criticism of the book, if you have any, to perhaps help me form a more balanced opinion1. 1On an unrelated note: doesn't that split infinitive sound good? I totally disagree with that arbitrary English grammar rule not to split them.

Ya sure let's take it to PM. I am renown for being curious =P. and not so hostile. I believe this happens to me too. I can't tell if it's chi but I feel some strange sensations all over my body. Oo neat, I didn't know that could happen! Sounds like whatever it is you are doing, it's causing you to see reality in a different way. keep it up, I'd say, could lead to interesting places =). But also from what I understand, if you want to reach enlightenment, don't get caught up on them or treat them as having real substance, at least while you're meditating, or you'll just solidify them as something artificially real without progressing.

well I meant to say that what he said could easily have come from someone who is an egoist.

ah true. well I'll worry about such things once i'm an Arhant instead of debating them now

Is there any study on the prevalence of Alzheimer's in people who meditate? Does it reduce the incidence of Alzheimer's as my intuition would be? Also has anybody who has reached enlightenment gotten Alzheimer's? That'd be interesting.. wonder how that would manifest itself. Or is that impossible for some reason?